all,” Abby said, “as soon as she’s inside me, she’ll know I’m not Damascus. But,” she exclaimed, before Rune could open her mouth, “I have a way to keep her inside me. It won’t be fun—at least not for me—but I can make sure she doesn’t leave until I’m ready to release her. And you’re going to need to do something terrible, because once I die, she’ll be released.”
Rune frowned. “What will I have to do?”
“You’ll have to bury me alive. When I suffocate to death, Karin will be trapped beneath the ground with no live bodies around to transfer her nastiness into.”
She felt Abby shrug. “Remember when I said I needed to atone? That will go a long way toward achieving that end.”
“No shit.” Rune was silent for a few moments. Finally, she sighed. “I don’t want to put you in the ground alive, Abby. That’s…” She shuddered, her claustrophobia kicking into high gear just imagining it.
“I think you will.” There was a smile in Abby’s voice. “You’re going to always do what you have to do, aren’t you?”
“Still. There has to be another way.”
“There is, but it’s risky. If she’s powerful, she could end up doing something worse than possessing your friend.”
“What’s that?”
“Possessing you.”
“Yeah. That would suck.”
Abby laughed. “Indeed.”
“What’s the other way?”
“We’ll need a stoppered jar. There’s an old crone who skulks about the castle. She’s been there forever and knows everything. She can touch the jar with a spell. In essence, I can release Karin to the jar. Cork it up, she’ll be stuck in there forever. And that’s a long, long fucking time.”
Rune pressed her lips together and tried to force her thumping heart to slow its thunderous beat.
Brain in a jar.
Fucking brain in a jar.
“What’s wrong?” Abby asked.
“Brain in a jar,” she whispered. “My biggest fear.”
“Is it something you would wish on your worst enemy?”
“Yeah. Fuck, yeah.”
“Then let’s go find the crone and beg her help.”
She urged the beast back to the castle.
“I know the woman you’re talking about. She put a cloaking spell on me once.” She gazed up at the castle. “Do you think she stayed?” Smoke still poured from tiny, open windows, and the place appeared abandoned.
“I don’t think she can leave,” Wicked Abby said. “I don’t think it’s physically possible.”
They climbed off the kelper and Rune looked around for a rope with which to tie him. “We’ll need him for a ride back to my friends,” she told Abby.
But Abby shook her head. “I know where the horses are. They won’t all be gone. Let this asshole go and we’ll get a better ride back.”
Rune pulled her blade and cut his throat. “Deal.”
Abby gave a surprised bark of laughter. “That’s one way to let him go.”
The castle was silent and already had an abandoned, eerie atmosphere. The air was dead and heavy with hanging smoke and only the occasional scream, echoing moan, and clatter of chains let them know there were still people remaining inside the walls.
They walked up the winding staircase to the hallway in which the crone had shown herself to Rune.
“Old woman,” Rune called, when they stood in the silent hallway. “Are you here?”
“She doesn’t like to be called old,” Abby murmured. “Her name is Ada.”
“Ada,” Rune said. She strode to the curtain-covered nook and pulled back the drape, but the crone was not there.
“She has to be here,” Abby said. “She’s always here. Tell her what you need.”
Rune cleared her throat. “Ada, I need your help. A piece of evil shit has hitched a ride to Skyll from my world. She’s possessed a friend and we need her out before...” She let her voice drift off and shoved her fingers through her hair. “What’s the use?” She looked at Abby. “As much as I hate to take you up on your offer, if you’re still willing to take on Karin Love—”
“Karin Love is here?” Ada was suddenly there, twisting her head to the side to peer up at Rune from tiny black eyes. “Karin Love?”
Rune drew back, shocked. “How the hell did you do that?” And then, “You know Karin Love? How can you possibly know Karin Love?”
But deep down, she wasn’t that shocked.
Skyll was Karin’s kind of world—at least it was while the witch inhabited it.
Ada’s wrinkles tripled when she grinned. “Not even I know the entire story, but Death Shimmer lord Ariessin visited your world over twenty years ago. He was warned not to go but he defied those